I said that I wasn’t going to comment anymore on this whole fiasco, but I think I have something relevant and worth including here for posterity.
After the last fallout over this topic occurred late in 2015, things died down for sometime. Then it heated up again and Bryan and I in particular went at each other hard, so much so that I believe a few of those threads got locked as a result. I took a step back and deleted my account after rereading some of the vitriol thrown out there. In fact, I took a month or so off of reading anything brewing related. I even questioned whether I wanted to brew anymore. When I came back, I revisited the GBF documentation and with a cooler head, realized that I was very intrigued, yet still skeptical. I went to the GBF (for the second time) with my hat in hand (and pie on my face) and said I was going to try and be a contributor the best I could. You can understand that Bryan and the others there were not that interested in interacting with someone who trashed them as bad as I had. I kept at it, and I started to modify my spreadsheet to include some of the Low Oxygen basics. Eventually I got a message from Bryan with an interest in knowing more about the spreadsheet. If any of you have been around through all the previous BS, you know how unlikely Bryan and I talking about brewing seems.
So I went to “school”, learning about the basics of Low Oxygen, reading the texts, expanding the spreadsheet with Bryan as my β tester. You want to talk brewing knowledge? Here is how a typical conversation used to go:
Bryan: “I had some super fresh Paulaner tonight. Tasted fresh malt and grape flavor. I think I have an idea.”
Me: “What is it?”
Bryan: “Sauergut. I need to investigate Sauergut again.”
Me: “Nice. Let me know what you find out.”
The next day the guy built a Sauergut reactor in his basement with a spare fridge, controller and hair dryer. What?!?! This happened daily. Idea. Plan. Action. All the time. With his help I relearned brewing and built our spreadsheet into what it is.
What the hell does this have to do with what has been going on? Why does this matter in a conversation about what mods can do better? I’m getting there.
So one day I, for S&Gs, looked at the AHA forum and saw some inaccuracies and falsehoods being talked about in reference to Low Oxygen. I tried my best to correct them. People wanted to know about my change of heart. Around this time I had mentioned to Bryan that there may be a more receptive audience back at the AHA. Long story short we were back and a lot of information was being exchanged freely. People were receptive and excited. Bryan was giving out as much information as people could absorb. I was trying not to embarrass myself ([emoji16]). People were still skeptical but enjoying the approach, the free exchange and the renewed mood around the topic.
And then something distinct happened and many of you are astute enough to have noticed it. Someone came in and started in with some of the old nonsense. And I understand it well because I felt the same way at some point as well.
This is where the mods could have stepped in and taken that person aside and said, “You know we appreciate where you’re coming from and we agree on some of the same points, but we’ve gone down this road before and you don’t understand how much better of a situation this is now.”
That would have de-escalated the situation and we could have continued on uninhibited. But instead, you egged him on, knowing that he was saying what you likely wanted to but wouldn’t, or felt you couldn’t, and we opened an old dead end.
Go back and read the first post on the Intro to LOB thread. Read the pages and pages of positive encouragement from Bryan to all kinds of forum posters. Read the positive results from those trying it. Now tell me when you read the breakdown. I think people have already hit on when it happened.
You guys are fallible. You are posters and moderators. But you should have seen this coming. Either you did and didn’t do anything or didn’t and didn’t do anything. Now it just seems like damage control.